Monday, December 2, 2013

NPC 2nd Annual Holiday Nail Art Challenge - Day 1: Snow

I'm so excited for tonight's post if only for the fact that I'm doing nail art again! It's been far too long since I've gotten to be creative and it felt so wonderful to sit down with all of my polishes and just paint.

Today's mani was done as an entry into Nail Polish Canada's 2nd Annual Holiday Nail Art Challenge! The first theme was "snow" and we could interpret that in any way we wanted. Sadly (or perhaps to those who dislike the snow, luckily), I don't live in an area that gets snow...but I love it. I am particularly fond of how snow looks piled atop branches and while browsing for inspiration, I came across an image of a red cardinal perched on a pine branch that was covered in snow. Needless to say, I fell in love with the contrast of the red, green and white of the snow and knew I had to do it. So, here is my "snow" themed look inspired by that image :)

While my cardinal is a bit squashed and not quite a defined as I would've hoped, I'm happy with how these turned out.

I had started taking photos of my painting process to share with you all but I got in the groove of things and completely spaced on it. If anyone is curious, I painted my background first by sponging on different layers of blues, greys, tans and beiges (Zoya's Carey, Flynn & Kristen, China Glaze's Recycle, OPI's My Vampire is Buff) and then roughly sketched the tree branch outline in diluted brown polish.

I then began painting my pinecones and using black, white and browns (Zoya's Louise for the dark brown) to create the different parts of the cone. With Zoya's Hunter is painted in the pine needles and added some accents of Julep's Francis. The cardinal is painted with Zoya's Livingston. He's a bit on the tubby side but I still like him ;) I finished the whole look off with my snow on the branches.